The Beginning of Human Ambitions

Those that seek Me early shall find Me.” — Proverbs VIII. 17.

To seek God is a very bold aim, the greatest aim that marksmen ever took. The command to take that aim early is a paradox. We do not teach a beginner to aim at things very far off. We set before the child an ideal within reach of his arm. We go on the principle that our power to hit the mark will grow from less to more. But the principle here is just the opposite. God’s rule is, “Let your earliest aim be at the highest — at Myself!’’ He says that to be a successful marksman one should try first to hit the farthest heights. The first object of a child’s moral imitation should be not the human but the Divine, not his companions but his God; his highest aim should be his earliest. And, indeed, I think experience will bear out this view. I do not think an inferior form of beauty so fitted to stimulate a beginner as a superior form. Sunlight will always be more stimulating than candle-light. If I want to waken a child’s admiration I would rather direct him to the glow of the morning than to the gleam of the gas. I would make him begin at the top of the ladder. I would point him to God, before all things. I would tell him to fix his eye first on the Absolute Beauty. I would direct him on the threshold to the flawless, peerless. I would lead him, not into the outer court of the temple, but into the Holy of Holies, the inner shrine where the Highest sits supreme. I would let Him descend from God to man, not ascend from man to God.

My soul, aim first at the skies! Do not begin with anything near the ground I Do not say, “I will start low, and accustom myself gradually to the height!” Point thine earliest arrow for the farthest flight. Seek God in Thy morning! Let no finite model be thy guide to heaven; follow Christ!

Measure not thy standard by Plato, by Socrates, by Moses; follow Christ! Take not thy pattern from angel or archangel, from cherub or seraph; follow Christ! Say not, “I will try to imitate one whom I can reach; one who is not too far beyond the stretch of my hand!” Imitate the unresLchable; follow Christ! Thou shalt never reach thy goal — not in myriad flights of thy wing; He will ever be before thee. But that will be thy glory. Thine will be an eternal model. It would be no glory to come up to thine ideal. Aspiration would die; the wings would lose their power of flight — thy strength is the unattainableness of thy goal. Men speak of the everlasting hills; what thou needest is rather an everlasting climbing — a hill whose summit thou canst see, but canst never gain. Christ is that hill of holiness. His summit will be as far from thee at evening as at morning; but the climbing is itself the goal. They that seek Him will find an eternal forerunner; seek Him early, O my soul!